TV shows and movies typically set in the American frontier (commonly referred to as the "Old West" or the "Wild West"). The frontier is depicted in Western media as a sparsely populated hostile region patrolled by cowboys, outlaws, sheriffs, and numerous other stock gunslinger characters. Western narratives often concern the gradual attempts to tame the crime-ridden American West using wider themes of justice, freedom, rugged individualism, manifest destiny, and the national history and identity of the United States. Native American populations were often portrayed as averse foes or savages.